Thursday, April 29, 2010

All together again

Posted by
Sean

We are parked at a horse trailhead in the Crooked River National Grassland, a couple miles off US-97 between Redmond and Madras (map). It is an idyllic spot, with a view of hills in every direction, and overlooking the broad agricultural valley to our west. In addition to several posted trails leading from here, the Forest Service has also constructed livestock pens and a loading ramp here. They look to be mostly unused, and we definitely had the whole place to ourselves last night. A lone pickup truck towing a dirt bike trailer coming out of the forest has been the only vehicle we've seen since arriving yesterday afternoon.

It's such a lovely spot that we would stay more than just one night, except for the fact that we are out of water. I put in only two nights' worth back at the Bend Elks, knowing we would have to dump in the next couple days. The DPW dump station in Redmond had only a rinse hose, though, and I did not want to fill the fresh tank from a spigot so close to the sewer. Dumping there is now $2 (our guide said $1), and we had to scramble to find two singles to drop in the iron ranger.

The next town north is Madras, which has no Indian restaurants, as far as I can tell. The guide says it does have a city park, though, with free overnight parking and a water spigot, so we will tank up there. We might even spend the night, although it is only 20 miles from here. Our other option tonight is the casino in Warm Springs. I had originally planned to be in the Mount Hood National Forest tonight, but it is supposed to be snowing and near freezing there; Madras and the casino will be in the 50s.

Our beloved George is back with us, not much worse for the wear other than a shaved spot on her arm where the IV was. We have some fish-oil stuff we are supposed to squirt on their food now, and we have instructions to get another blood panel wherever we are in two weeks. We dropped another two CAT units, in addition to the CAT unit we left Monday. "CAT" stands for "Cough up Another Two-hundred," by the way, so one CAT unit = $200. She does seem more chipper after the hydration therapy, and we are very happy to have her back aboard.

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